Core Record

Title

A Raja with a tame antelope on a leash

Collection

Artworld: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Date

1700-1799 CE

Description

The Raja's green costume is Hindu because it fastens under the left arm. He wears an elaborate turban and the 'katar' (stabbing dagger for hand-to-hand combat) in his waist band, a pink sash decorated with flowers at the ends.. His servant wearing white, holding the Rajah's sword, is shown on a suitably small scale in the background.The black-buck is considered sacred by the Hindus and here the Raja is shown exercising his tame buck. It is large and robust. Wearing bells tied around its girth and chest, it prances forward with its long antlered head tilted back.The background of the image consists of a large hill, broken by tufts of grass, and lined with trees. The top of the hill is unseen, reaching above the top of the picture plain.

Description Source

Lorna Hards

Cultural Context

Indian

Id Number Current Accession

800

Location Creation Site

Bharat, Rajasthan, Junia (Ajmer District)

Location Current Repository

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Subject

visual work, painting, miniature

Measurements

300 x 195 x 1 mm

Context

In this Rajasthani miniature painting, a raja walks near a hillside fringed with trees holding the leash of a harnessed black buck. The retainer who follows holding his sword and waving a cloth is shown smaller on the principle of hierarchic scaling.A 'Rajasthani Hindi' inscription on the reverse has been covered by backing paper but appears to read: 'raja sri (s?)urjan (m?)al ji'. No local 'thaku' named Surjan Mal has yet to be identified.The picture has been plausibly attributed by T. McInerney to the painter Chand, who worked for Raja Raj Singh Rathor of Junia, near Ajmer, at the close of the seventeenth century. Other works ascribed to Chand are in the collections of the late Kumar Sangram Singh and Sir Howard Hodgkin (Topsfield and Beach, 1992: 70-71) and in the Victoria and Albert Museum (I.S. 16-1983). The artist's style shows some affinities with painting from the Rathor states of Jodhpur and Bikaner, suggesting that he may have moved from western Rajasthan to serve this minor Rathor prince.

Context Source

Robert Skelton. In: Steven Hooper (ed.). 1997. Catalogue to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. University of East Anglia.